Maxine Waters called for the harassment of Trump administration officials, and Trump is gleefully putting the spotlight on her. A year ago, Lachlan Markay and Asawin Suebsaeng wrote at The Daily Beast:
Rep. Maxine Waters has been reborn at the age of 78, emerging as a folk hero to the anti-Trump resistance for her repeated torching of the president.
From the glowing coverage and partisan praise, you’d barely detect that just a few years ago the veteran California congresswoman was dubbed one of the nation’s “most corrupt” elected officials by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington for her role in pushing a bailout for a bank tied to her family.
Waters was eventually cleared by investigators, though her grandson who served as her chief of staff was not. And now, Democrats seem to be embracing—and some liberal ethics advocates willfully ignoring—her sudden emergence as one of the nation’s leading critics of ethical lapses in President Donald Trump’s administration.
Asked by The Daily Beast whether the group felt that Waters would be an effective critic of Trump’s own ethics given that history, Jordan Libowitz, a Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington spokesman, demurred.
“Going to have to pass on this one, I think that’s just a little too political of a question for us,” read an email from Libowitz, whose group is a key component of a well-funded network of political and policy outfits working to “kick Donald Trump’s ass,” in the words of Democratic operative David Brock, who formerly chaired CREW’s board and has remained active with the group this year.Lloyd Green at The Hill:
Redistributive policies and identity politics loom as fast approaching storm clouds on a nearby horizon. Clintonian neoliberalism and triangulation just got belted with a left hook to the jaw, and the party’s poohbahs are looking dazed and confused.
Ocasio-Cortez calls for single-payer healthcare, abolition of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, and free college for all. Forget about the underlying arithmetic and how to pay for all of it, which either requires sky-high taxation or flat-out sorcery. Rather, this is a cultural manifesto, a cry for open borders, and a demand for one ginormous nausea-inducing free lunch. Against this backdrop, does anyone think Michael Bloomberg has a realistic shot at winning the Democratic nomination two years from now? There is nothing like an aging financialist to get people really excited and trudging out in the dead of winter to hang out for two hours at the Iowa caucuses.
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Trump is working hard to trash the First Amendment, shred the rule of law, and gut reproductive freedoms. But when the smoke clears, Ocasio-Cortez, Maxine Waters, and Democratic “progressives” may well leave greater and more lasting cultural and economic resentments.
Democrats are taking a winning moral issue (not separating children from parents) and turning it into a losing political one (eliminating ICE/Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency). If they keep this up they may have a replay of 2016 on their hands.— Peter Wehner (@Peter_Wehner) July 2, 2018
Crazy Maxine Waters, said by some to be one of the most corrupt people in politics, is rapidly becoming, together with Nancy Pelosi, the FACE of the Democrat Party. Her ranting and raving, even referring to herself as a wounded animal, will make people flee the Democrats!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 3, 2018
